Tinseltown Riff Read online

  Brushing Ray aside, C.J. repeated, “Es una perdida mi tiempo.”

  “Listen to me, will you? If you don’t cough up my collateral, there is no front, the pipeline is blown and I am dead in this town, dead in Vegas, dead on this planet. I am talking whacked.”

  “Then what is your proposition?”

  Ray walked back to the table, located a thick rubber band and began stretching and twirling it around his hand. “Okay, we go back to square one. I will tell Leo we got Pepe under wraps. No more cowboys, no more hired guns. Just us three amigos.”

  “Leo? Orlov from the gym?”

  “From the gym, from Odessa, from under a rock.”

  “He launders, si? This I can count on.”

  “Gets the front money and produces. But, seeing how things have taken another U-turn, no more hack screenwriter and whoever was running him. We go back to the drawing board. You getting this?”

  C.J. shook his head.

  “No matter. Look, all you gotta do is fork over the high-jacked goods, so Leo cashes in, so his backers are no more the wiser.”

  “His backers?”

  “Banks in Eastern Europe or something—who knows? The point is, Starshine’s dummy operation looks solid and it’s nothin’ for you to worry your head.”

  “I see.”

  “It don’t matter what you see. The smoky barn thing blows over, you get your cut, the front—whatever--gets back on track. That’s it!”

  C.J. stared at this cowering idiota and didn’t know how to answer. By force of habit he ran his finger across the cross-hatched threads of the other pocket. With nothing better to say, he came up with this. “You go back to your drawing board. You come up with something much better.”

  “What are you saying?”

  “I am saying, you will be called.”

  “When?”

  “In a very few hours.”

  “Sooner. Much sooner. I can’t take no more frickin’ waiting.”

  “Lo siento, I am sorry. It is complicated. I must nail this down, comprende?”

  Talking to himself again, Ray went back to his battle with the strings to find an A. Then cried out, “You have to cut a deal with me. You have to!”

  C.J. slipped out through the glass doors and the sun porch, annoyed at himself for not sticking strictly to English. Then kept going past the bleached blond and the pool area.

  She caught up with him a few yards before the high wooden gate leading out to the drive. Ordinarily he would have ignored her and kept going. There was something about her type--hard body, chewing gun, smoky cigarette butt between her fingers. But this time he noticed a look in her eyes and bruises on her face.

  “What’s the rush?” she said. “What happened? How’d it go?”

  “Not good. People do not know what they are doing.”

  Hesitating, unsure whether to waste time with this ridiculo pop singer, C.J. reached for the latch.

  “Hold it, like don’t judge it by Ray.”

  “Oh?”

  “You need reassurance? I mean, if it’s like really important ...”

  “I get this from you?”

  “Who else?”

  “And why would you give me reassurance?”

  “‘Cause I’m goin’ outta my skull. ‘Cause after my concert gigs tanked, I thought I had a ticket back. My own reality show on cable: Sex Kitten Chronicles. My own brand of breath mints and body-bath. An exercise video, a Christmas album for Burger King. And then they smack me with ‘You’re not girly enough’.” For emphasis, she dropped the cigarette butt on the pink cement and mashed it with the heel of her sandals.

  With nothing to lose, C.J. said, “So what are you that I should stand here and listen?”

  “The only one who knows the score,” she said, raising her voice over the racket Ray’s tuning was making through the open sliding glass door.

  “You know the score? I deal with you?”

  “You bet your butt.”

  Pulling out the capsules from the middle pocket, C.J. said, “If this is so, tell me what are these?”

  “What are you, kidding? I knew it, I knew it. You have no idea what you got hold of, do you?” She snatched one of the capsules and held it up high. “They’re my very own Starshine special,” she announced over the noise. “Stardust. My recreational drug, my design.”

  “And what is so special?”

  “Euphoria, no more chronic fatigue. I am talking long-acting time-released thingamabobs.”

  Goading her on, C.J. rolled his eyes and reached for the latch again as the noise subsided.

  “All right, all right. It’s a ‘unique combo of mescaline, amphetamines, ecstasy and synthetics that sets you rolling and never lets you down’.” She said this as if answering an easy question on a quiz show. Instead of a drum roll, her answer was greeted by another blast from Ray’s dented guitar.

  “So,” said Angelique, “you satisfied? You gonna fork over the shipment so’s I can get back in gear?”

  Pushing his luck, C.J. said, “Perhaps. But I would like also to know about this Molly person.”

  “What is that, a joke? Supposed to deliver like always, no questions asked. Then comes up with this pigeon idea. Can you believe it?”

  “She is in on this operation?”

  “She is in on nothing. Wants a free ride, break into movies—you know the type. But when push comes to shove, she gets cold feet, blows me off. That is so lame. I mean, what is this? Even that tall dude never got back to me.”

  Angelique threw her head back, popped the capsule in her mouth and swallowed. Then dug into her flimsy robe, chomped faster on her wad of gum and came up with a bent cigarette. “Hey, you got a lighter or something?”

  “I do not smoke.”

  “Jeez, at least the tall dude had a box of matches.”

  Remembering Ben’s story, C.J. couldn’t help smiling.

  “So,” said Angelique, screwing up her face, “I say, hell with it, right? Hell with everybody and let’s get this show on the road.”

  “But right now I must go.” For the third time C.J. reached for the latch.

  “What are you, crazy? You got to hear the smoke screen.” Angelique flipped the bent cigarette into a hibiscus bush. Ray’s electric guitar blasts resumed, sounding more and more like a jackhammer.

  Angelique looked up into the brownish haze as if for divine inspiration, took a deep breath and said, “It’s a kick-ass iPad video game for chicks. Gillian’s idea.”

  The name Gillian rang a bell but, for now, he let it go.

  “You listening?”

  “I am listening,” C.J. said, ready to cut her off but curious about the front Ray Shine had been talking about.

  “The gamer becomes me, naturally. And there’s lots of puzzles to solve. She has a hot bod like me, only better like before. And, hey, you got a hot bod too. You could be cloned-in for a bad guy or something. Ooh, awesome. Wait till I tell Leo.”

  “Orlov? The one who is in this with your boyfriend?”

  “Boyfriend?”

  “Ray.”

  “Oh, puh-lease. I am the star in Starshine. That scumbag is my business manager.”

  “But he is not happy. He is looking for a new way to hide.”

  “He is looking for a knuckle sandwich. I should’ve said former business manager. He has had it, he is through. Plus, if you see her, tell miss Molly, Who needs you? Same goes for the cowboy. Same goes for everybody who botched it. That was just a trial whatchamacallit.”

  “Balloon?”

  “Righty-O, muchacho. Yeah yeah, wait, wait, it’s coming to me. ‘Stead of drug dealing on the side, you will cut way down on the cop thing and throw in with me. ‘Cause, hunky, you’ll be the draw, the candy that sucks the babes in. Hey hey, yeah yeah. And right after this hot-bod thing goes viral—I am jig-sawing myself back in with no bitchin’ stand-in-- we follow with the chick-flick and ... oh my God, my gosh, my golly.”

  As her eyes started to cross, she blurted out for
all the world to hear, “Hey there then now, my Stardust is kickin’ in! Top of the world, Zorro! Top of the world!”

  The jackhammer noise suddenly quit. Ray came tearing through the bamboo curtain demanding to know what she was blabbing about. Was she giving away more of her calling cards, “screwing him over with Pepe?”

  Ray was on top of them before C.J. had a chance to slip away. Ray raised a fist aimed at C.J., thought better of it and shook Angelique so hard, her see-through robe flipped open revealing everything. C.J. backed out past the high wooden gate as she slapped Ray across the face, ordering Ray to get his bony ass off her property before she called the cops.

  “Dios mio,” said C.J. walking away. “The police? Que pasa?”

  It began to dawn on him how many spin-offs there were. Drug trafficking. The front (unknown to too-hungry Ben), banked by a blanqueo, an international laundering de dinero. This front up to its ears in fraud and cooking the books. Then, on the head of the cowboy, there was arson and many counts of assault. When you factor in all the links--cartels, the overseas banks and that Vegas crime syndicate ...

  He tried not to get ahead of himself but it was hard to resist. He could see his life so different. No more the payaso on loan on the Hollywood tourist beat. A big promotion was in store for him, certificates of merit, his finger in a muy grande case load. The extra money to his mother for a dress shop in Sonora, and for him and Chula to start a new life.

  Walking briskly alongside the curving, walled drive, C.J.’s face broke into a wider grin. Snapping his fingers to a cumbia beat, he made his way down to his flashy Mustang. What a break this was. Faster better English had not been necessary with those two idiota. What’s more, even the few words of Spanish helped do the job.

  Approaching the bottom of the drive, he poked a finger through the open weave of the lower pocket and shut the micro recorder off.

  Returning to the stop-and-go on his way back to West Hollywood, he settled on a last gambit before handing over his findings. In the meantime, nearing Sunset, he made a call to the station. He learned from the desk sergeant that the cowboy’s property bag contained two little boxes of wooden matches from a Durango Trading Post. No I.D., nothing else that would tell you who he was.

  Swinging down Fairfax, he made another call. In short order, the fire chief’s assistant told him used wooden matches were found on the livery stable floor and in different places around the loft, along with a charred handgun and an empty clip at the bottom of an oil drum. And one more thing: bullet casings on the plank flooring and bullet holes in the barn doors. The casings, clip and handgun had been turned over to Mac, C.J.’s super.

  As C.J. reached Melrose, he knew he was much closer to nailing this Deacon but good.

  Following another of Ben’s leads, C.J. drove around the back of the studio till he spotted a parked mid-sized Ford, metallic-beige with rental plates.

  After contacting Hertz at LAX, he got out some white cotton gloves and an evidence bag, got in through the unlocked driver’s side and began poking around. When the first try got him nowhere, he took a timeout. With nothing better to do, he checked out what was going on close by. He found trucks grinding in an out of a back alley; workmen busy plastering, fitting in new glass and dragging panels of sheetrock. That was all. No tie-ins.

  Back to the rental car. Working slowly and patiently, he came upon a spare magazine clip for a Walther handgun carefully hidden beneath the floor padding under the passenger seat-adjuster. He placed it into the evidence bag and zipped it shut.

  Returning to his own car, he made two more calls. In twenty minutes time he was told two more things: The Ford was rented to Deacon James; a just-reported stolen Walther handgun was registered to Ray Shine, both residents of Las Vegas.

  Next, C.J. popped the lid of the trunk. Unzipping the overnight bag he came across a silver attaché case, handwritten notes on a notepad and another cell, this one a smartphone with a bunch of messages. Most telling were voice mails from the SEC and the DEA. It seems the Feds had been trying to reach Elton Frick, the one sending crank calls to police stations in Hollywood, Vegas and San Francisco. This was his phone. They were not crank calls. They were legitimate.

  Out came C.J.’s mini-recorder. As he added to his collection of leads and tangibles, he connected more dots and filled in the blanks about this Elton Frick. From the way things looked, the Feds were trying to reach this Frick hombre, as if Frick still had this cell but was afraid to answer. The latest message told Frick it was okay. They now knew he’d had a fever, loco in the cabeza when he made those calls. Up in some hunting and fishing lodge, suffering from a badly swollen ankle and pneumonia when he was found a day or so later near a mountain lake. Also nearsighted without his glasses to make things even worse.

  How they’d traced the calls and why some agent was on his way this morning to a spot west of Montana’s Glacier National Park was beyond C.J.’s imagination. Somehow it all figured and added to the charges the cowboy was up against. The testimony of the accountant alone was enough to do him in. All C.J. could do was submit his discoveries and let those higher up take it from here.

  Checking back once more at the station, he got word that the cowboy had started banging a stool against the bars demanding to be turned loose. Pretty soon the other guys in the holding cell had to restrain him. It reminded C.J. of the time some hombre tried to keep a wild coyote. First the coyote gave him the evil eye, then it tore open the pen, then it howled and bayed so much they had to come and put it away.

  “Dios mio,” C.J. muttered. “First Frick, now the cowboy is going loco. What next? Lo que mas puede pasar?”

  As the early afternoon wore on, C.J. became aware it had become very quiet. Returning to the narrow alley, curious as to why the cowboy had chosen this very spot to park his car, he saw that the workmen had quit. Then, moments later, he heard a squeak and a clang.

  Presently, a muchacha bonita slipped through a hidden opening in the security fence. She was dragging what looked like a pigeon coop with handles. So busy she didn’t look where she was going, tripped and stumbled but kept going and rushed down the alley heading toward the back of the building site. C.J. couldn’t help thinking of the young women he’d seen many times since his Hollywood posting. Hopeful at first with that entusiasma look in the eye. But, like now, hurrying to cut their losses and leave it all behind.

  Chapter Twenty-nine

  Stuck in his daiquiri cubicle a while longer, Ben faked a smile and listened to Perky go on about what a lucky guy he was. She raved about the fact that in less than fifteen hours he had gone from smoke inhalation victim to a dude about to rejoin the living. He’d passed the latest battery of tests with flying colors and, like a tooth fairy, some lady had dropped off a change of clothes and a battered but still serviceable suitcase to boot.

  “One lucky guy,” Perky repeated, giving him a thumbs up.

  Offering another fake smile, Ben sat up a bit straighter on the remade bed, wondering who the next floater would be. He also wondered how he would deal with Oliver’s Prelude which was still in limbo at the Honda place. Good thing, of course, that Oliver didn’t drive. Maybe the service department accepted Perky’s plea that Ben was in no condition and could they please drop the car off on Oliver’s driveway. Maybe they bought the idea, maybe they didn’t. Be that as it may, slipping back to the forefront was the gist of Iris’s note still clutched in his hand. That and a growing concern over what had become of Molly.

  “No no no,” Perky continued in a vain attempt to read his mind. “No heartfelt thank-yous, no cheesy goodbyes. My reward for playing nursemaid and errand boy comes from never seeing your backside again. Which means, the second the orderly pops in and wheels you out, you’re no longer my concern.”

  She lingered at the fluted curtain and cocked her head. “Well there, kind of quiet out there right now, huh?”

  “Yup.”

  “That’s a break “

  Ben nodded.

  “Eyes bet
ter, throat okay?”

  “Still a little sore.”

  “And your knee? Still ache? Not up to speed naturally, but you handled that long corridor real good.”

  “That I did.”

  “Yes, sir. Like a champion rodeo rider who might’ve taken a little fall.”

  “Yup, that’s me.”

  “Oh, and don’t forget the meds and stuff on the cart. Follow the directions.”

  “You bet.”

  In the ensuing silence, he knew the question was finally coming. To counter, he hung on to another fake smile.

  “The lady who left the clothes and suitcase. A relative, huh?”

  “Sort of.”

  “She coming back to pick you up?”

  Waving the note, warding off any full blown query, Ben said, “Probably not. I haven’t read this yet. I’ll know more soon as I do.”

  “Sure, of course. But just in case, want me to ring somebody else? That number you gave me before?”

  “No thanks. Thanks anyway.”

  Stalling some more, Perky said, “Pretty cool, having the L.A.P.D. pay your bill. Like I said, you are some lucky guy.”

  Ben had no idea what she was talking about. It occurred to him that he hadn’t any medical insurance as well as car insurance, couldn’t afford to keep up payments on anything. Perhaps C.J. had wangled something.

  ”Yup, I am some lucky guy,” Ben said, hoping the well-meaning interrogation was now over.

  “Right.” Still doing her damnedest to end her stint on the upbeat, Perky said, “Tell me, those duds you’re wearing. Button-down shirt, khaki pants, loafers—you’re an actor right? Getting into your part for some old-timey flick. Like a take-off on stuff on Turner Classic Movies.”

  “Not really.”

  “A Hallmark TV thing?”

  “Nope, sorry.”

  “Oh, don’t hand me that. You are somebody in the entertainment business, I just know it. ” Settling for this tag line, Perky blew Ben a kiss and dashed off.